The Church of Almighty God is one of the most harmful cults currently operating in China. It spreads fallacies and demagogic theory to attract low educated and weak mind people to join the organization. Once people become addicted to their fallacies, they believe that they are saving humanity and saving the world instead of committing crimes.

The defendant Xu Fang is an Almighty God believer. One day, he, together with his daughter Shi (14-year-old, handled separately) and Ge (female, 15 years old, classmate of Shi, handled separately) took Guan, a girl who had mental illness and was another one of Shi’s classmates, to his home in order to “save” her.

On the evening of 30 January 2013, Xu Fang persuaded Guan to stop taking the medicine she used to treat her mental illness and soon after Guan’s mental illness appeared to manifest itself. Xu Fang believed that she was possessed by “Satan” and they needed to kill the demon, so he started to hit Guan in the head with a bench, covered her mouth and squeezed her neck. He also asked his daughter and son (under 14 years old) to tie a jump rope around Guan’s neck and asked Ge to hold down her legs. Later Guan died of mechanical asphyxiation.

During the judicial proceedings, a mental expert asserted that Xu Fang and Shi had mental disease relating to witchcraft and thus had limited criminal responsibility when committing the crime.

The Court decided that Xu Fang carried out the exorcism in accordance with the beliefs of his cult, hit the victim on head and instigated young girls and boys under 16 years old to deprive the victim of life. His action had caused one death and his behavior constituted intentional homicide. It was initially determined that Xu Fang should be punished severely due to his role as the main criminal in the case and because he instigated young people to commit a crime. Taking into consideration that he truthfully confessed to committing the crime and that he had a limited criminal responsibility at the time of the killing, Xu Fang was finally given a lighter punishment. The court found him guilty of intentional homicide and sentenced him to life imprisonment and removed his political rights for life. In addition, Xu was ordered to pay 22,993.5 yuan in funeral fee compensation to Guan’s relatives.